A little masterpiece
Lonely
Are The Brave is
a little masterpiece. It was Kirk Douglas’s favorite film. It was certainly his
best Western (if Western it be; I think it is). Douglas was capable of
overacting and did not immediately strike one as a convincing and natural
Westerner. But in this movie he underplays it superbly and his fine performance
is admirably counterbalanced by that of Walter Matthau as a droll, cynical (but
basically good-hearted) sheriff.
It’s a modern Western in
which Douglas on the run is hunted in the New Mexico mountains by a helicopter
and jeep. But apart from these trappings it is essentially a classic oater as
the loner hero fights to overcome both the law and nature in the raw to escape
and go his lonely way.
Of all the Westerns in
which the horse plays a central part, and there are not a few, this is the most
important. Whiskey, Douglas’s fancy mare, is a central character, as much as
Douglas himself or Matthau. Douglas could escape by leaving the horse and going
it alone but a cowpoke doesn’t abandon his mount, not when the going is rough
anyway, and in the end (or not quite the end) Douglas needs Whiskey. True
partners, they go off together into the metaphoric Mexican sunset. The real end
comes after the sunset and is a tragic one.
When Douglas wanted an
intelligent Triggerish horse for his live-action cartoon Western The Villain in 1979, he named it
Whiskey.
Other acting, apart from
the horse, is also good. George Kennedy is a sadistic prison warder with a
Mexican accent. Gena Rowlands is excellent as the wife of Kirk’s best friend – but
she also kind of loves Kirk. She is dismissive of the macho cowboy pretensions
yet sympathetic to a decent man. There’s a hint of Shane here. Carroll O’Conner is good as a tired truck driver, and
director Miller does well to show us the inexorable march through state after
state of this huge semi carrying ‘bathroom fixtures’, building to the
inevitable climax. Best is the wry Sheriff Walter Matthau whose duty it is to
hunt Kirk down yet who is more than half on his side.
Visually, Lonely Are the Brave is very fine. Like
the horse, the New Mexico locations are almost a character in the story. The
movie was shot around Albuquerque and is quite stunning in its beauty. But then
everyone knows that New Mexico is the most beautiful part of the United States
and probably the most beautiful place in the world (I just need to check up on a few more places in Europe and Asia but I'm pretty sure I'm right).
The black & white
photography by Philip Lathrop is breathtakingly good. Lathrop came from TV and
later did workmanlike movies like The Pink Panther and Airport 1975,
that kind of thing, but every so often he photographed a blindingly good one
like this movie or Point Blank.
David Miller, the director,
is not known for Westerns (he did the 1941 Billy the Kid but that’s all) yet he does a fine job here and captures the spirit
of the Western movie perfectly. He pays excellent attention to the beauty and
power of landscape (he’d probably seen an Anthony Mann Western or two…) and he
develops character most interestingly.
Only the script is a bit
leaden. That could happen with Dalton Trumbo. Having the best name in the world
(Dalton Trumbo) doesn’t mean you can automatically write the best Western screenplay. A hero of the Hollywood
Ten and winner of two Academy Awards, he worked on few Westerns (he wrote the
average Cowboy in 1958 and the equally routine The Last Sunset, with Kirk, the year before Lonely) and didn’t really ‘get’ it. Douglas, who had purchased the
rights to the original Edward Abbey novel, was a friend of Trumbo’s (Trumbo did
Spartacus) and thought the screenplay
perfect, and of course Trumbo was admirably placed to write about lone heroes
defying the pressures of the modern world. Not that the screenplay is lousy,
you understand, and it certainly prizes individualism, just that it is slightly wooden
and rather overstated. Too much crossing of symbolic highways, for example. Fortunately,
the gritty performances meant that the dreaded Nostalgia, which could have sunk
such a picture, was pretty well avoided. The movie is in some ways Hud-ish but it doesn’t so much debunk
the West or portray a sterile one as ask the question whether the West can
survive an age of Interstates and helicopters. The answer has to be no.
Low key, with a small cast,
in black & white, this is no majestic, sweeping Western. Instead, it’s like
a diamond, small, hard and precious. So many ‘modern’ Westerns aspired to
portray the sadness of the passing of the old ways and the tragedy of the fact
that Western virtues were outmoded and now pointless. This film (which must have influenced Cormac McCarthy) achieved
it.
Thank you for sharing valuable information. Nice post. I enjoyed reading this post. The whole blog is very nice found some good stuff and good information here Thanks..Also visit my page. Best Western electronics Curvehospitality provides extensive range of Casegoods,Seating,Lighting,Artwork,Bathroom fixtures,Electronics,Drapery and Flooring.It saving valuable space.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteJeff
Nice blog..
ReplyDeleteBest Western electronics
Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteJeff
This movie is one of my very favorites; it knocked me out when I saw it in its initial release in an old 2,400-seat downtown movie palace on a huge curved screen. It was simply beautiful. Glad you like it, too.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a fine film.
DeleteJeff
Excellent underrated film, the horse, Whiskey(?) looks like a Palomino Quarter Horse but has been identified as an Andalusian in another blog. Does anyone know its breed? Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I'm not expert enough on horses to say. Looks like a palomino to me but I'm happy to be corrected!
DeleteJeff
Do you know if Douglas did his own riding and handling of the horse in all those scenes>
ReplyDeleteI don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if he did a lot himself.
DeleteJeff
OK, I know it's all acting, but the ending left me in tears!!! What happened to Whiskey after the movie?
ReplyDeleteNo shame in that!
DeleteI don't know what became of Whiskey. Hope he had a happy life!
Jeff
This is a great review. I love this movie. That ending devastated me when I was young but as I got older, I really appreciated the characters and what drives them, what they give up, etc. to get to that point. Whiskey is beautiful and is as important a character as any person in this movie. And I love love love Jerry Goldsmith's score, which is top notch.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteI agree, it's a fine film.
Jeff
Whiskey looks like a Rocky Mountain Horse to me
ReplyDeleteWhiskey looks like a Rocky Mountain Horse to me.
ReplyDeleteOK, sounds good!
DeleteJeff
One of my favorite films.
ReplyDeleteIt is heartbreaking.
I seem to call reading somewhere about the real Whiskey, but I can't find it now. Anyone have any luck in that regard?
Thanks for your comment. Yes, it's a great picture.
DeleteMany readers sem interested in Whiskey! We definitely need someone with The Knowledge to fill us in.
Jeff
Does anyone have any info on Whiskey. Never seen the movie before. She was a lovely horse, but I was worried about her treatment in the movie especially when she was scaling the mountain and slipped.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. I often wince when seeing a horse fall in a Western. But I don't know about the specific case of Whiskey. Douglas loved the horse and was unlikely to have permitted any cruelty.
DeleteJeff
I felt the same!
ReplyDeleteWhiskey was a blond sorrel. Randolph Scott rode one for many years in his westerns. His name was Stardust They're beautiful horses.
ReplyDeleteThat’s interesting. I always thought Stardust was a palomino. But Wikipedia tells me that “Light-colored sorrels, sometimes called "blond sorrels," especially if they have flaxen manes and tails, may resemble a palomino. However, true palomino coloration is the result of a horse's being heterozygous for the cream dilution gene.” So now we know.
DeleteThanks for the comment!
Jeff
Excellent review of an excellent movie. Brought back memories when I also rode thru the Sandia Mountain range around Albuquerque, thanks.
ReplyDelete